BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Rising food prices and extreme weather
are sparking more humanitarian disasters around the world, the
United Nations' top official for emergency relief warned on
Tuesday.

Fourteen out of 15 U.N. "flash appeals" for help last year
were a response to devastation caused by droughts, floods and
hurricanes, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said.

"That is five more than in any other year," Holmes said
during a visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels.

"We are seeing them (disasters) increase in intensity and
number," he told a news conference, saying weather events could
not always be directly linked with climate change.

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Holmes cited growing demand for food in China and India, a
shift towards more meat-oriented diets and the use of
foodstuffs in biofuels as driving what he called a structural
change in food prices that put some staples beyond the reach of
the poor.

A recent rise in wheat flour prices in Afghanistan had hit
poor people hard, and similar humanitarian consequences of food
price inflation were feared in Pakistan and Bangladesh, he
said.

"This poses a double challenge for the World Food Program.
Not only is the price increasing but the need is going up
because of the hunger," he said.

The U.N. body is overseeing an international target of
halving the proportion of hungry people in the world.